53 Replies - 4521 Views - Last Post: 08 March 2013 - 12:54 PM

US: Copyright Alert System kicks in..

Posted 27 February 2013 - 08:41 AM

In the last week the "'Copyright Alert System" kicked into effect. The gist is "the industry" will monitor peer to peer services and notify your ISP if they catch you. Your ISP will then email/call you... you know.. to "educate" you. If you are caught six times they throttle down your bandwidth for forty-eight hours. Though, of course, this begs the question if this is just all for case building on "the industry's" behalf.

This sort of presents an interesting question - who is actively using an encrypted VPN? Is this something that may just be standard like having an anti-virus installed?

Interestingly down in the comments of that lifehacker someone suggested getting an EC2 microinstance from Amazon.. install 'openvpn.net', and only running it when you need to. Heck... the amazon pricing for a micro 'on demand' instance is $0.02/hr.

Any thoughts on how this will shake down, or is how long the 'Copyright Alert System' will last?

Spoiler

What:

Quote

Internet users who illegally share music, movies or TV shows online may soon get warning notices from their service providers that they are violating copyright law. Ignore the notices, and violators could face an Internet slow-down for 48 hours. Those who claim they're innocent can protest - for a fee.
...
unlike the lawsuits from the mid-2000s - which swept up everyone from young kids to the elderly with sometimes ruinous financial penalties and court costs - the latest effort is aimed at educating casual Internet pirates and convincing them to stop. There are multiple chances to make amends and no immediate legal consequences under the program if they don't.

The Copyright Alert System was put into effect this week by the nation's five biggest Internet service providers - Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Cablevision and the two major associations representing industry - the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America.

Under the new program, the industry will monitor "peer-to-peer" software services for evidence of copyrighted files being shared. Each complaint will prompt a customer's Internet provider to notify the customer that their Internet address has been detected sharing files illegally.

Depending on the service provider, the first couple of alerts will likely be an email warning. Subsequent alerts might require a person to acknowledge receipt or review educational materials. If a final warning is ignored, a person could be subject to speed-throttling for 48 hours or another similar "mitigation measure."

After five or six "strikes," however, the person won't face any repercussions under the program and is likely to be ignored. It's unclear whether such repeat offenders would be more likely at that point to face an expensive lawsuit. While proponents say it's not the intention of the program, it's possible the alert system will be used to initiate lawsuits.

If a person believes they've been wrongly accused, they will have multiple chances to delete the material and move on without any repercussion. If the problem is chronic, they can pay $35 to appeal - a charge intended to deter frivolous appeals but also one that can be waived. The center says it won't require proof that a person is financially strapped.

First things first: the Copyright Alert System is not a government program. Your ISP won't even give up your personal information to the content partners unless it's required by law through a subpoena or court order. The most annoying thing that'll happen if you get caught is that your bandwidth might be throttled.

The Copyright Alert System only monitors peer-to-peer traffic from public BitTorrent trackers. That means they're not looking at private BitTorrent trackers, email attachments, file lockers, or anywhere else. Basically, if you're not using BitTorrent you have nothing to worry about.

Re: US: Copyright Alert System kicks in..

Posted 27 February 2013 - 09:26 AM

This type of thing existed for years. But it was privatized. I believe that the fact the government agencies are stepping in to monitor usage is new.

A roms trading group I belonged to (years ago) had one of our members busted. He was trading PS2 games (in 2002 this was relevant). One of our group rules were dead-systems only. He was trading in many many other rooms, including posting PS2 iso files to newsgroups. He was busted by sony's copyright protection whatever, & they alerted Road Runner, whom did whatever & he was arrested & jailed for two years.

Again, from my experience this is nothing new, just who's eyes are watching the traffic is new, & the peer to peer network sharing is a different transfer than irc/dcc/binary newsgroups.

Re: US: Copyright Alert System kicks in..

Posted 27 February 2013 - 09:34 AM

Comcast has been allowing this for years now already. I didn't know this was new stuff...

Also most of my peer to peer activity isn't illegal, yet I've been flagged by "the industry" and contacted by my ISP for downloads that were far from illegal (I was torrent sharing ubuntu for too many days once, got flagged for that).

Re: US: Copyright Alert System kicks in..

Posted 27 February 2013 - 09:48 AM

Ticon, on 27 February 2013 - 04:33 PM, said:

But speaking of vpns has anyone tried BTGuard? I hear they are really good.

I hadn't until you mentioned them, but I went and looked them up, in case they had anything to do with the company, BT, which is a bloody awful company. (The only place I've worked on a technical helpdesk where I got into trouble for helping get a customer's internet working... Go figure).

Anyways, back to BTGuard... I Googled them, and McAfee took a hissy fit. It seems that the BTGuard website either has something against McAfee (or vice versa), or it is loaded with spyware, malware, or some other associated crap.

Re: US: Copyright Alert System kicks in..

Posted 27 February 2013 - 10:27 AM

lordofduct, on 27 February 2013 - 11:34 AM, said:

Also most of my peer to peer activity isn't illegal, yet I've been flagged by "the industry" and contacted by my ISP for downloads that were far from illegal (I was torrent sharing ubuntu for too many days once, got flagged for that).

Absolutely same experience! Was Ubuntu 8.04, I think. I was schooled in Comcast throttling, how I got there, how I could avoid it, and why I'm assumed guilty. I'm afraid I've been a very bad torrent sharer ever since.

The problem isn't that they'll come and lock up modi ( sorry modi ), it's the false positives and faulty appeal systems. All you need to do is see well the DCMA is enforced by self appointed authorities to see where this is going.

The companies that are getting ripped off, it is their stuff too & they don't want people torrenting it for free.

It goes both ways.

Yeah and I don't want people stealing my stuff and then selling it out of their back door.

But that doesn't give me the right to monitor all stuff going in and out of my neighbours house to ensure none of it's mine.

It's called privacy.

& the amount of privacy that you pay for should (should) be provided to you in writing by your isp. If that changes, change isps. This is why I was against sopa. It removed the ability of isps to provide their own level of whatever. Should this level of monitoring change that, then I would be against it as well.

Re: US: Copyright Alert System kicks in..

Posted 27 February 2013 - 11:00 AM

baavgai, on 27 February 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

The problem isn't that they'll come and lock up modi ( sorry modi ), it's the false positives and faulty appeal systems. All you need to do is see well the DCMA is enforced by self appointed authorities to see where this is going.

And all of this is why I've been thinking for a while that I want to start getting as paranoid as I can manage with all of my electronic communications. Hearing Doctorow speak last night didn't really make me want to ease back on that decision...